Sterling Silver Flatware

Sterling silver flatware is one of those home furnishings that can have a subtle yet powerful impact on your grand design scheme. If you've already plowed thousands of dollars into vintage furniture, picture frames, lighting fixtures, and other accessories, complete your home's beautiful presentation with a set of flatware that you'll be proud to lay out at your next dinner or cocktail party.

Many of the leading names in flatware are recognized brands, not just to professional designers, but to anyone with more than a passing interest in interior fittings. Towle, Tuttle, Gorham, and Lunt are just a few of the family names that have become veritable dynasties in the sterling silver flatware market. Each of them offers a full catalog of styles in continental, dinner, and place settings, from four-piece sets to 66-piece spreads for sumptuous dinner parties.

What You Get with Your Sterling Silver Flatware

In addition to the usual arrangements of serving spoons, cold meat forks, sugar spoons, and pie and cake servers, there are specialty pieces that give some sets their own unique cachet. Strawberry forks, fruit knives, and butter spreaders help fill out basic settings and show your eye for precision and detail. After all, in some social circles it's considered a grave sin to use the improper utensil--and yes, your guests are watching.

Most people buy their sterling silver directly from the manufacturers' licensed outlets, but that's not necessarily your only option. Aside from the many discount home furnishings chains that offer reduced prices on signature flatware there are internet vendors who can provide you with the very same products at half the cost. Try your favorite search engine for a full directory of flatware wholesalers who will ship straight to you and spare you the hassle of haggling with uppity store clerks who cringe when your place knife and dinner knife end up in the wrong spots.